“There lives no record of reply,”
which, if given, might have “added praise to praise”—that is, might have sealed and confirmed the promise that “blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”
As it was, the neighbours met and offered congratulations, and their cry was,
“Behold a man raised up by Christ!
The rest remaineth unreveal’d;
He told it not; or something seal’d
The lips of that Evangelist.”
It is only St. John who records the miracle.
XXXII.
At a subsequent visit to Simon’s house in Bethany, where both Lazarus and Mary were present, Mary’s eyes, looking alternately at her brother who had been restored to life, and at our Lord who had revived him, are “homes of silent prayer;” and one strong affection overpowers every other sentiment, when her “ardent gaze” turns from the face of Lazarus, “and rests upon the Life”—Christ, the author and giver of life. Vita vera, vita ipsa.
Her whole spirit is then so “borne down by gladness,” that
“She bows, she bathes the Saviour’s feet
With costly spikenard and with tears.”[24]